Inaccurate hear rate

[pianki.davidjos]

I have had the Fitbit ionic for a year and a halfnow. I run and lift weights, usually around five miles a day whether it be outside or treadmill. For almost the whole first year my Fitbit hr monitor seemed to work fine. If I ran at my usual 8 min pace my heart rate would stay between 140 and 150ish. In weights mode normally just below cardio levels. Now over the last six months within one minute of running my heart rate is in the 190's and stays there. During lifting it stays between 140 and 170 sometimes. When I check it on multiple treadmills it's usually 150. I've worn a heart monitor for the doctors and they said nothing unusual during exercise.

      This has been very frustrating for me because I track my calories burned closely in relation to my food logging and I know these spiked heart rates are effecting my calorie burn and the accuracy of my cardio fitness score. Very strongly considering switching to Garmin and being done with Fitbit.

[YojanaFitbit · Accepted solution]

@pianki.davidjos Hope you are doing great and enjoying some healthy activities, welcome to the Forums!

Thanks for adding all those details in your post, sorry to hear that you're not getting the correct reading on your Ionic. You're right, this will be taken in count when calculating the amount of calories burned for the day. Don't worry I'll do my best to help you out with this, so you can keep using your Food Plan.

I'll do my best to help you out with this. First of all I'd like to mention that our PurePulse heart rate tracking is the only heart rate technology to offer automatic, continuous wrist based tracking for all-day health insights and workout intensity. It is uniquely designed to measure heart rate all day, with always-on optical heart rate sensors that still maintain extended battery life also. PurePulse allows you to accurately track workout intensity and calorie burn with finely tuned algorithms that provide insight through interactive charts and graphs. 

To help the accuracy of your HR readings, you can read some tips to improve accuracy since occasionally your tracker may have difficulty getting a strong signal. If you don't see your heart rate on your tracker, first make sure you are wearing it correctly. Experiment with placing the tracker higher on your wrist; because blood flow in your arm increases the farther up you go, moving the tracker up a couple inches can be helpful. Also, make sure you're not wearing your tracker too tightly; a tight band restricts blood flow, potentially affecting the heart rate signal. 

I'd suggest to restart your Ionic, in case that you think it might be having a hard time on the software.

Also take in count that Heart rate may be affected by any number of factors at a given moment. Movement, temperature, humidity, stress level, physical body position, caffeine intake, and medication use are just a few things that can affect your heart rate. Different medical conditions and medications can impact your heart rate. Consult your doctor before starting an exercise routine.

Fitbit shows Heart-rate zones to give more information about your HR, it can help you optimize your workout by targeting different training intensities. Fitbit calculates your maximum heart rate with the common formula of 220 minus your age. Three heart-rate zones are determined using your estimated maximum heart rate. The illustrations below provide examples for each zone. 

If the issue persist, instead of using the 3 existing  zones, you can create a custom zone to target a specific heart rate. 

To create a custom heart-rate zone:

1. From the Fitbit app dashboard, tap the account icon > Heart Rate Zones.
2. Enter your custom zone.

On fitbit.com, log into your dashboard and click the gear icon in the top right. Choose Settings > Personal Info and enter your custom zone.

Note that on Fitbit Ionic, the heart-rate value appears gray if your watch is searching for a stronger reading.

Hope this helps, I'll be around! 

[SunsetRunner]

This has been happening to me for over a week too! I went for a walk with my family and I was around 180 bpm when I'm normally in the 110 range on a walk. I had multiple instances where I was sitting and resting and it would jump from 72 to 98 in a matter of seconds and then back down to mid 70's. Very bizzare. I reached out to Fitbit and all they kept telling me was that they are aware of this issue with the Ionic and one other model and they're trying to fix it. I told them I wanted them to send me a Charge because that worked great and they told me no. I just needed to wait until they fixed it. I've been loyal to FB since 2013 and I'm not regretting it. So sad.